Skip to main content

Oasis

Yesterday she stood and stared blankly when people greeted her on the street. Today she waves Hi, unprompted, even to strangers way across the street who haven't noticed her yet.

Last week she developed her very own Silly Walk, a la John Cleese, with her left foot way up high in the air at every step. Since then she's been practicing walking backwards, and today she added a Groucho Marx strut with her knees and hips out in front.

All of a sudden yesterday we turned the page in her My First Animal Book and she saw the gorilla, and she beat her fists against her chest, just like I had showed her days ago.

She can slide all by herself now on the big twisty slide. She can climb all the way up the steep steps, sit down at the top, scoot to the edge, get brave, and slide down to where I am waiting. And when she can't quite get brave enough, which happens about half the time, she can turn around and climb back down the stairs.

I cannot get enough of Zoe. At 13 months she is endlessly fascinating. She learns and develops so fast I can barely keep up with the things she can do by herself.

And it is wonderful to me that I've been able to be with her almost constantly for the last month. We've spent the last few days meeting new babysitters to prepare for the craziness that looms ahead in the calendar, so I am acutely aware of the blissful oasis we're enjoying right now.

As things begin to heat up I'll be making hard choices every day about the best way to spend my time, and I won't have the luxury of getting everything done that I want to. My goal is to keep enjoying her. Although there will be long weeks of late night commutes and multiple daily quintet gigs and meetings and rehearsals and frantic cramming-style practicing, I want my time with Zoe to stay this magical. I want to watch every new skill as it appears. This is so much fun!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Knife Sharpening

I've gotten a lot of questions on this topic, and the most recent querent prompted me to make a video to demonstrate.  You can find that  HERE . Knife sharpening seems to strike terror into many hearts.  And it's little wonder.  Many famous oboists have gone on record as saying that a sharp knife is the most important aspect of reed making. People have entire systems of stones and strops and rods set up to sharpen their knives. And it is important, of course it is - but I don't believe that you need your knife to be razor-like, or objectively the sharpest blade of any in your home.  The reed knife has one job - scraping cane off in precision ways - and it has to be sharp enough for that, and sharpened optimally for that purpose.  More than that is overly fussy for my taste. This is not to say that I allow my knife to be dull.  A dull knife forces you to put too much pressure on the reed and can cause cracking. Obviously it can lead to terribly inc...

Exciting Upcoming Concerts

The South Bend Symphony has a great concert this weekend that I've been really excited about. If you are in town you should definitely try to attend, as it features Prokofiev's thrilling Symphony no. 5 AND our marvelous concertmistress, Zofia Glashauser, playing the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto. However, I will not be there. This Friday and Saturday I am playing Strauss's Ein Heldenleben with the Milwaukee Symphony , and loving every single minute. This orchestra sounds spectacular, and here's why. They rehearse. They have plenty of time to really listen to each other and get things right. This morning, our service was a wind sectional, which blew my mind. Almost 2 full hours with only the winds and brass, just on this one 40-minute piece. The conductor worked with us on every detail. Intonation, articulation, ensemble, balance, style. And still we have another full orchestra rehearsal tomorrow as well as the dress. I haven't sat in a winds-only rehearsal...

Beauty of Sound

In our dress rehearsal Saturday afternoon, the conductor did exactly what I often do to my students - he asked the violins to play more beautifully, and they did.  He didn’t tell them how, or give them a flowery expressive speech, he just asked for more beauty of sound, and they immediately gave it to him.  To a great extent the sound we produce is set, based on our equipment and the shape of our mouths and our bodies - but it can be altered, too.  Adjustments in reeds and instruments can go a long way, but the key change we can make is in our own minds. I don’t know how to explain it physically, but if you determine the sound you want to make you can produce it.  Or at least you can lean in and approach it.  This is something I’ve been paying a lot of attention to lately in my own playing.  As I prepare the Saint-SaĆ«ns Sonata to perform on our Oboe Studio Recital (tonight at 7 - details HERE ), my approach is largely about beauty of sound and vibrato....